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NITED STATES PATENT OF ICE.

THOMAS RI CLARK, on NEW YORK, N.- Y.

GLAZED KID-LEATHER.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 322,521, dated July 21, 1885.

Application filed March 19, 1885. (No specimens.)

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, THoMAs R. CLARK, ot' the city, county, and State of New York, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Glazed Kid-Leather; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full and exact description thereof, reference being had to this specification.

My invention relates to that class of leather which is commercially known as French glazed kid, and which is chiefly employed in the manufacture of ladies fine shoes.

It consists in a novel description of leather in which a highly-polished surface produced upon the tissue of the skin, so as to be inseparable therefrom,is combined with an oil-tawed body, or a body or grain rendered supple, durable, and imput-rescible by the permanent presence in its fiber of oxidized or saponified oil free from tannin, alum, or any perceptible trace of lime.

My improved leather combines, with all the beauty and advantages of a perfectly-glazed surface of the highest finish, all the suppleness, strength, and toughness of the best oiltawed leather, and it is consequently free from the objectionable tendency to crack under strain, which is inherent in French glazed leather heretofore manufactured.

To produce this new article of manufacture I take skins which have been thoroughly tawed by any known process wherein the fibers of the grain of the skin are coated and im' pregnated with oil or fat, which in the process of tawing is fixed and rendered insoluble and practically unchangeable therein. I remove from these oil-tawed skins every particle of unoxidized or unconverted oil or fat by drying them, and then immersing the dry skins in a bath of pure refined naphtha-preferably the ordinary commercial naphtha of about 70 Baum-or other equivalent volatile hydrocarbon oil-in a tank or close vessel, which is either made to revolve or in which the skins are otherwise agitated by means of rotating arms orst-irring devices, so as to insure a rapid and thorough permeation thereof by the fluid. This agitation is continued until the naphtha becomes so fully saturated with the greasy and oily matter extracted thereby from the skins as that 50 it will take up no more. The skins are then removed to a second clean bath of pure naphtha, and drenched therein as in the first case, and this operation of subjecting the skins to a fresh supply-of naphtha in a clean vessel is 5 repeated again and again until the naphtha in which the skins are last placed will remain pure, and so far unaffected thereby as not to show upon proper test the least trace of oil or grease. 6c Where the skins have in the original steps of tawing been treated with impure oil, it may become necessary to further purify them from the traces of gummy or resinous matters which have resisted the solvent action of the pure 6 naphtha, in which case I subject such skins to a drenching with alcohol, woodspirits, ammonia, or other equivalent solvent for gum my and resinous substances. The skins thus tawed without the use of tannin, or of alum or other 7c mineraltanning materials, are finally dyed and polished in the same manner as are the alumtawed skins of which the French glazed kidleather heretofore manufactured is produced, and which, being well known to the art, it is'7 unnecessary herein to describe.

This improved glazed leather combines with all the toughness and desirable qualities and peculiarities which are inherent in oil-tawed skins a peculiar toughness in the polished sur- 8( face which is wholly novel and has heretofore been deemed unattainable.

I claim as my invention- Glazed leather having a body ingrained with an oxidized or fixed oil, combined with a sur- 8 face brilliantly polished.

In testimony whereof Ihave signed my name to this specification in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

THOS. R. CLARK.

Vitnesses:

J. EMRICH, SAMUEL Roms-sou. 

